Once I Was Dead
by Juliet's Shadow
Summary: I've always had a habit of escaping death. I don't know why or how, but when I find myself dead, I just wake back up. I don't remember heaven or hell, or even which one I went to. I just remember that I was dead. One-shot.


I've always had a habit of escaping death. I don't know why or how, but when I find myself dead, I just wake back up. I don't remember heaven or hell, or even which one I went to. I just remember that I was dead.

"Julia," my mom called, placing a hand on my shoulder, "wake up." I blink open my green eyes and look up at her. I died last night. I shouldn't be alive, but honestly I had just blinked away death for the third time in my life. "You've been asleep all day, Julia. It's five o'clock. James keeps calling you like he is worried sick."

James. He is possibly the only reason I keep managing to wake up, shrugging off these deaths like a dream. I keep dying, but I always come back to life. I never find myself staying dead. "I'll call him, mum. Don't worry."

She leans down and kisses my forehead. "I'm always worries about you, Julia," she sighs and leaves me alone to get dressed. I sit up, pressing my lips together before picking up the cell phone that sits at the corner of my bed. The phone rings twice before I hear an answer.

"Julia," the voice exclaims happily at the other end, "you're alive!"

I roll my eyes. "You've got to stop doing that, James. I don't know how it works in the wizard world, but in the muggle world people who are dead stay dead."

James lets out a sigh on the other end of the line. "Yeah," he sounds tired, "that is typically how it works in my world, too." A pause. "Do you want to go on a date, Julia? I can pick you up at six."

I nod, then realize he won't be able to see it. "Of course I will. I'll go ahead and get ready. See you in fifty minutes, or so."

I hang up the cell phone and get out of my bed and make my way to the bathroom. I sigh when I see my bald head and missing eyebrows. If I hadn't known James since I was six years old, then I'm sure he would never had taken interest in me. I wonder if his world has cancer? I shake my head to ignore the thought. "Doesn't matter anyway, eh?" I say to myself in the mirror. "James would have found a way to bring me back, wizard world or not."

I am able to put on a bit of makeup quickly and easily, just a bit of eyeliner and lip gloss, as well as drawing on eyebrows, before moving onto my wig. It's a caramel color with ringlets reaching just past my shoulders. The girl who donated the hair for the wig must have been gorgeous. Putting it on, I almost feel normal again.

Six o'clock rolls around and there is a chiming from the doorbell. "One moment, please!"

I give myself a quick look over in the mirror, deciding I like the jeans and ruffled blouse combo I wear, before walking to the door. James is standing there with a dozen carnations in his hands. They've been enchanted to change colors, from bright sunshine yellow to pale sky blue. "These are beautiful, James! Did you make them do this?"

He chuckles and gives me a quick peck on my lips. "Well, my mum helped out a bit with the charm."

His mum. Of course Ginny Potter wouldn't send her son on a date with a dying girl without enchanted flowers. I adore his mum. I take the flowers from him and go dig a vase out from under the kitchen sink, quickly placing them in the water before going back over the James. "So, where are we going?"

He smiles. "That, my dear Julia, is a surprise." He looks at me and plays with the ends of my hair. "You didn't have to dress up for me, you know."

I shrug. "I know," I say, "but I wanted to. I want you to remember me like this when I do go for good. Don't act like I won't go either, James," I say quickly, seeing him about to protest, that I won't die, "You cannot keep bringing me back to life. I'm going to die for good eventually."

James gives me a sad nod, but takes my hand in his and walks me to the side of the house where a broomstick is waiting. There is a basket slipped onto the front and I can tell we're going to have a picnic somewhere. He climbs on his broom and I climb on behind him, holding him tightly around the waist before he flies off into the stars. The flight isn't long. We end up just on the outskirts of town in a grassy field where the stars shine brightest. We eat pulled pork sandwiches and treacle fudge until we are full. He gives me a mug full of butterbeer because he knows it is my favorite and I cannot have it in my world.

After a while, we are lying on a blanket, just looking at the stars. "How did you bring me back this time, James?"

James sighs. "I knew this would come up." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out an oddly shaped stone. "This is the resurrection stone. It can bring people back from the dead."

"And you used it on me?" I ask.

"I love you, Julia. I don't know what I would do without you." He kisses me and we give into one another on that blanket.

I died the next day, for real this time, as I didn't belong in the world of the living, but that hardly mattered. I died knowing James loved me. That was enough for me.


End file.
